


Night's Watch

by chronicAngel



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Bat Family, Future Fic, Gen, New Family, POV Third Person, Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-13 17:02:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20585948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: "Alright, Night's Watch first patrol: Commence.""You get your punning from my dad.""I get my punning from my mom, thank you very much.""Well either way, you get the sentence structure from Uncle Damian.""Dude, you can't just throw around civilian names like that, Grandpa would kill you."





	Night's Watch

"Alright, Night's Watch first patrol: Commence."

"You get your punning from my dad."

"I get my punning from my mom, thank you very much."

"Well either way, you get the sentence structure from Uncle Damian."

"Dude, you can't just throw around civilian names like that, Grandpa would kill you."

Charles sees his cousin huff and pinch the bridge of her nose, and rolls his eyes at her in turn. Before she can snap something back at him or else make him feel dumb with exasperated silence like her mom is so good at, though, Snakebite cuts in with, "Wait, Damian? Like, Damian Wayne?" Charles groans and buries his face in his hands.

"See? Look what you did, Mary." He bemoans, glaring at his cousin like she is his 14-year-old sister and not a full five years older than him. Then again, she is the oldest on this team and thus should probably be the best about keeping secret identities, and yet she just threw out their uncle's name.

She scoffs. "He's not the only Damian in Gotham! If you didn't just say my name, it'd still totally be a secret, but _you_ blew it, you little twerp!"

Supernova looks between the two of them shyly and asks, softly, "So you two are Waynes?"

"_I'm_ a Wayne," he says, with probably too much pride. "She's a Grayson-Gordon."

"You're a _Drake_-Wayne you pretentious brat," she sneers at him, and he sticks his tongue out at her. After a moment of the two of them making faces at each other, she sighs loudly and moves to pull the mask off of her face. Her skin is visibly red and sweaty even in the moonlight underneath it. Then, she offers her hand to the other two, "I'm Mary Grayson-Gordon. And 'Nightwing' over there is Charles Drake-Wayne."

"I could hear the quotation marks around that and I take offense, Mary," he murmurs, crossing his arms and staring off to the side. Just because Nightwing was her dad's title and she chose to use something else so it was totally up for grabs doesn't mean he didn't earn it. And _his_ parents are very proud of him for choosing to follow in Uncle Dick's footsteps.

Hesitantly, Snakebite reaches up to remove his own mask and then takes Mary's hand to shake. "Uh, Trevor Fox," he says. "I'm kinda new to this, do we usually reveal secret identities on night one?"

"_No_," Charles murmurs, at the same time that Mary says, "Well, I trust you guys."

"You don't know us," Supernova points out, brows furrowed beneath her own mask, which is difficult to see through the thick blue lenses covering the whole area around her eyes. Then, hesitantly, she adds, "Yet." She reaches out to shake Mary's hand but, notably, leaves her own mask on and does not introduce herself by a civilian name. Mary doesn't press her for one, and Trevor seems too busy staring at every detail of Mary's face, totally mesmerized, that he doesn't even seem to notice. Charles chooses not to take his mask off either, even if they now know his secret identity thanks to his cousin, and he clears his throat to redraw attention to the matter at hand.

"So, as I said before, this is the first meeting of the Night's Watch. Basically every vigilante who isn't related to me is in this group--"

"That's because almost every vigilante in Gotham is related to us," Mary points out, and Charles glares back at her.

Trevor raises his hand, and Charles almost facepalms before pointing at him as though to silently say, _Yes, ask your question_. "Is... is the name of this team a reference to Game of Thrones?"

Charles feels his cheeks heat up as Mary starts laughing so hard she doubles over and clutches her stomach.

"Alright, new rule! No questions."

"How is this supposed to be a meeting if we aren't allowed to ask questions?" Supernova asks, her brows furrowing again.

"It's... just, shut up!" He squeaks, face flushed. "It's like, y'know. Batman goes on patrols, where he's watching. Batman is The Dark Knight. Knight's Watch? Only I'm Nightwing, not Batman. So, Night's Watch! Get it?" Also, it totally _is _a Game of Thrones reference, but they don't need to know that he binge-watched the whole show over his parents' shoulders with his brother when he was about four during one of their several rewatches while Mom snored in Dad's lap in the middle of season three.

Mary sighs and rubs at her temples, and then says, "What he's trying to say is that this is a meeting for a group of vigilantes. Vigilantes who have all made it our business to defend Gotham City. And if our grandfather taught us anything before he retired, it's that, no matter how much of a pain it might be sometimes," she throws him a sideways look, "we work better when we work together. Our parents and grandparents have done a great job fighting crime in this city over the years-- hell, most of _us_ have done a great job fighting crime in this city over the years. The squirt over there has been in the business for over ten years now. So, it's about damn time that we all start working together so we can all do this city right, huh?"

They're all quiet for a second, staring at her. Trevor looks the most starstruck, mouth agape, and there are practically hearts in his eyes. "She's--"

"Taken," he cuts off. "And too old for you. Way too old."

"I heard that, brat!" She yells, glaring, and he laughs. "I'm only five years older than you, and about a million times cooler!"

He ignores her in favor of continuing the meeting, which is really just starting to feel like a teenage hangout featuring a 23-year-old woman and a bunch of ill-advised capes. "Since there are four of us, it would be best to patrol in partners. Nightjar and I have been doing this the longest, so each of us will go with one of you. Snakebite, you'll go with Nightjar. You two check out the Northwestern quadrant. Supernova and I will check out the Southwestern quadrant. Reconvene here in two hours. Nightjar and I have comms in case of emergencies, which we'll turn on when we depart. If you see anything, tell us, and we'll give the other a location to meet up."

Trevor raises his hand again, and Charles facepalms. "Uh, Northwestern quadrant? Gotham is 330 square miles. How are we supposed to patrol a quarter of it in two hours?"

"Uh, swing from rooftop to rooftop? Run down alleyways? Take Nightjar's motorcycle?"

"She has a _motorcycle_?" Mary grins, and Charles just rolls his eyes. "Well, what are you guys going to do?"

"I have--"

"Actually, I can probably help," Supernova says before he can say anything, and he tears his eyes to her. She shyly steps up behind him, and murmurs, "Sorry if this is all wobbly and awkward, I've never tried to carry another person before..." Before she moves her arms to support his back and scoop up his legs under his knees. He hardly notices when she lifts off of the ground, until he finally stares down to see that they're easily at least two and a half feet up.

He grins and wraps his arms around her neck to make sure he doesn't end up falling if she loses her grip or something after her admitted inexperience with carrying people, and then calls down to the others, "We'll do this! Meet up with us here in two hours!" She waits for an awkward second, and then seems to realize that was a parting and begins flying due south.

It's too quiet for at least ten minutes. He doesn't like long silences, basically never has, because he thinks best when he's sharing his thoughts with another person. It's always driven Conner crazy. "So, are you like, Kryptonian or something? I didn't hear about another Kent drifting around, certainly not living in Gotham Ci--"

"I'm not Kryptonian," she cuts him off. It's somewhat curt, different from the shy way she's been acting for the rest of the night. Then she chews on her lip, apparently immediately regretful of it. "I consider myself a normal human, just like you or Mary or Trevor," she says, and he _sincerely_ doubts that. He'll give her metahuman at best. After a moment, she tentatively adds, "Just... a normal human with super-strength and the ability to fly and... a whole lot of other superpowers, I guess."

He shrugs. "It'd be fine if you weren't human. Personally, I think being human gets kind of boring. Like, what's sleeping about? That's eight hours I could be studying or patrolling or having a wild dance party." She snorts, and then moves the arm that's supporting his legs to throw her hand over her mouth and nose, and he's thankful that he thought to wrap his arms around her neck because his legs suddenly drop and his back pops and now he's chest to chest with her.

Her eyes go wide and she moves her arm to scoop his legs up again, before just drifting to the ground and putting him down so his feet are on solid earth again. "Sorry!" He opens his mouth to reassure her and then just sort of shrugs and closes it, unsure what he can really say. _Eh, if I fall to my death, no big deal_. It seems like something Dad would say-- or at least something Dad would have said when he was his age. Definitely something Conner would say, in that annoying sarcastic way he says everything. "It's like I said, I'm not really used to flying while holding another person. Still, that's not really an excuse. Maybe we should just walk from now o--"

He laughs and waves a hand to dismiss it. "Chill a little. I was raised in the Bat Clan, I'm not afraid of heights. Plus, what's a couple of broken ribs between friends?" She laughs again, smiling softly at him, and he smiles back before his eyes slide over her shoulder. In an instant, he's tackling her to the ground, which is actually surprisingly difficult to pull off because she's... pretty strong. A lot stronger than him, and he's been training with _Batman_ since he was 8. Two of them.

"Nightwing, wh--" He puts a hand over her mouth and squints at the bushes. The flower petals on the rose bushes that he recognizes as having been planted by Pamela Isley and Harleen Quinzel a couple of years ago as part of a project to clean up parks in impoverished neighborhoods are opening, despite the fact that it's almost 11:00 PM.

After a moment, he sees a boy who can't be much older than 14 step out of the bushes, making himself plainly visible. He's familiar, though Charles can't quite place his finger on it. He has dark skin and high cheekbones, with bleached blond hair in an undercut so short it might as well be a buzzcut. Either way, his hand starts inching toward his utility belt, until the grass beneath them grows taller instantaneously and then wraps tightly around the both of them, holding them to the ground. _It's surprisingly fricking strong for grass_, Charles thinks in frustration as he squirms, ignoring how tightly he and Supernova are pressed together.

"I know who you are," the boy whispers in a voice that is surprisingly high given his muscular frame and strong jawline. Charles supposes he would have expected something more masculine. "Well, not the girl," he adds after a second, casual and almost... nervous. Not in a way that implies that he's afraid, though, so much as the sort of nervousness of a boy in middle school trying to introduce himself to a crush or potential new friend. "But I know who _you_ are."

"I doubt that," Charles spits, straining to grab any sort of sharp object from his belt.

"Curl in, away from my face," Supernova whispers, and Charles raises a brow at her. He stares into her brown eyes for a moment, his breath catching in his throat, before he notices them apparently start to glow. He ducks inward immediately, pressing his body tight to hers, and he feels a heat as she cuts through the grass less-than-delicately with apparent laser eyes.

He rolls off of her and just feels the cold air of Robinson Park at 11:00 on his skin for a moment. Finally, he pushes himself to stand and calls over to her, "You're sure you're not Kryptonian?"

"I'm human," she says back, sounding unamused, and then lurches forward, grabbing the collar of the boy's shirt and glaring into his eyes. "Who are you?!" She sounds terrifying, not at all like the shy girl on the rooftop, or even the curt, unamused maybe-Kryptonian in the sky. Charles can only swallow.

"E-Eddie!" He responds immediately, voice cracking, and squeezes his eyes shut, face turned away from her in clear fear. _Eddie..._ He thinks, trying to place the name. "Eddie Isley!" He adds after a minute, and Charles' eyes go wide.

He steps forward, pushing a hand between Supernova and Isley. "Eddie Isley? Like, Edward Isley? Like, the adopted son of Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn?"

"Their names are Pamela Isley and Harleen Quinzel," he huffs, clearly annoyed. "Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn were a long time ago. You of all people should know that, Charles Drake-Wayne," he adds, and Charles' brows furrow.

"Pretend I know who you're talking about. Why would I-- or he-- know that better than any other person?" He says, trying to feign unawareness. _How many people tonight are just gonna say my name out in the open like this?_ He grumbles in the back of his mind.

Eddie, who has apparently realized that the threat is functionally gone even as Supernova is still holding his collar and staring him down, just rolls his eyes. "Because _your mom_ is the one who treated my parents, dude. They're good people." Charles blinks at him. _So he definitely is Edward Isley, then._ This means that Charles was right, as Eddie was adopted by Pamela Isley and Harleen Quinzel thirteen years ago at one year old after his parents died as casualties in another Joker massacre-- the last Joker massacre.

"Wait." He says, thinking out loud again. "If you're Edward Isley, why do you have plant powers? You have no genetic relationship with Poison Ivy at all."

"And if you're not a villain, why did you tie us up with the grass?" Supernova adds.

Eddie brings a hand up to rub at the back of his neck awkwardly. "Uh, well... I didn't think that you guys would talk to me if you saw who I was and were completely unrestrained. My whole life, basically nobody's trusted me because of who raised me. Even though they're certifiably sane! Certified by _your mom_. I hoped that you of all people would give me a chance. And, well..." He stares down at his feet. "I don't really know where the powers came from. I was sorta hoping you and your team could help me figure that out..."

"How do you know about the team?" Charles snaps without thinking.

Eddie blinks a few times at him. "Dude. You're a Bat. And you're with another superhero _right now_. I didn't figure you were going to work alone." Charles would really love to see the look on Grandpa's face if he heard _that._ "I just... I don't know if you guys have a mission or anything right now, because I know you're superheroes and all that and probably super busy, pardon the pun. But... I guess I was hoping you guys could help me figure out why this is happening to me?"

"Why don't you ask Poison Ivy? I bet she did something to you while you were sleeping."

"Hey, you don't know shit about my mom, okay?" Eddie snaps, glaring, and it's so sudden and ferocious that Charles actually takes a step back. "Her _name_ is Pamela Isley. And she's reformed! Unless you're doubting your own mom's abilities as a psychiatrist."

"Of course not!" Charles scoffs back. Then he realizes that he's supposed to be avoiding revealing his civilian identity and he swears at himself. "Okay, okay, I believe you. Your mom didn't do anything. But someone probably did." He gives Supernova a sideways look, and she looks back at him before shrugging and letting go of Eddie's shirt, apparently misinterpreting the meaning of his look entirely, but it's fine since he probably would have asked her to do that in a minute, anyway. "We'll help you figure out what's going on with you. But you're a member of the team until then. That means following my lead--"

"Mary's lead," Supernova coughs, and he glares at her.

"It means following _my_ lead, and actually doing hero stuff, okay?"

"You've got yourself a deal, Drake-Wayne," he says, holding out a hand to shake.

Charles takes it, rolling his eyes in exasperation. "And stop saying my real name while I'm in costume, okay?"

**Author's Note:**

> So the cast here is fully OCs, which was... a risky move on my part, and also something I probably would have scoffed at a year ago. But! The line-up:
> 
> Charles Drake-Wayne, the son of Tim Drake-Wayne and Stephanie Brown. He's 18 and just picked up the title of Nightwing, being the fourth person to hold it (after Dick, Damian, and a cousin who I'll reveal more about later).  
Mary Grayson-Gordon, the son of Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon. She's 23 and has been operating under the title of Nightjar for about five years.  
Trevor Fox, the son of Tamara Fox. He's 19 and just started as Snakebite a couple of months ago, only just learning about his uncle's history as a vigilante and his mom's past experiences with villains.  
Supernova, family history unknown. She's 17 and kinda... showed up in Gotham a little under a year ago. Nobody knows where she's from or where she goes at the end of the night, they just know she's damn good at what she does.  
And Eddie Isley, the adopted son of Pamela Isley and Harleen Quinzel, or Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn. They reformed following extensive psychiatric treatment from Stephanie Brown, and adopted a little boy together, who's suddenly discovering plant powers of his own despite no genetic relation to the former Poison Ivy. He's 14 years old, and he still hasn't picked a vigilante name because he's never done this before.
> 
> I'm so excited for y'all to meet everybody!


End file.
